Tag: mobile

OMD FWD w/c 14th August

Hello and welcome to your weekly OMD FWD! This week Disney breaks up with Netflix to launch their own streaming service, YouTube enables in-app direct messaging and sharing features, and Facebook dives deeper into the broadcaster space. The social media giant is also armouring up to combat cloaking and ‘fat-finger’ ad clicks to protect users from unwanted content, while Google launches an initiative to help reduce annoying advertisements online.

Facing the future, the next billion mobile users could mean the end of typing. Accordingly, ASOS ‘photo searches’ lets iOS app users upload photos of outfits they like to shop for similar designs. Meanwhile, the music industry uses social data to predict new hits and Toyota launches a road safety app.

HEADLINES

 INSIGHTS

COOL

  • ASOS ‘photo searches’ lets iOS app users upload photos of outfits they’ve seen and shop for them
  • Toyota launches its ‘Safe and Sound’ ad to embarrass teenagers into becoming safer drivers
  • Lonely Planet launches an Instagram-like Trips app, where you can search for categories like “Adventure” or “Wildlife and Nature.”

DEEP READS

  • The next billion users will explore through videos not search, swiping rather than typing and use voice search instead of keypads, which will mark the end of typing
  • Amazon is in talks to offer event ticketing in the U.S. according to Reuters
  • With the popularity of Amazon’s Alexa and the democratisation of technology, AI continues to dominate the present and future, here are some handy tips

If anything catches your eye, please share using #OMDFWD


OMD FWD w/c 14th August

Hello and welcome to your weekly OMD FWD! This week Disney breaks up with Netflix to launch their own streaming service, YouTube enables in-app direct messaging and sharing features, and Facebook dives deeper into the broadcaster space. The social media giant is also armouring up to combat cloaking and ‘fat-finger’ ad clicks to protect users from unwanted content, while Google launches an initiative to help reduce annoying advertisements online.

Facing the future, the next billion mobile users could mean the end of typing. Accordingly, ASOS ‘photo searches’ lets iOS app users upload photos of outfits they like to shop for similar designs. Meanwhile, the music industry uses social data to predict new hits and Toyota launches a road safety app.

HEADLINES

 INSIGHTS

COOL

  • ASOS ‘photo searches’ lets iOS app users upload photos of outfits they’ve seen and shop for them
  • Toyota launches its ‘Safe and Sound’ ad to embarrass teenagers into becoming safer drivers
  • Lonely Planet launches an Instagram-like Trips app, where you can search for categories like “Adventure” or “Wildlife and Nature.”

DEEP READS

  • The next billion users will explore through videos not search, swiping rather than typing and use voice search instead of keypads, which will mark the end of typing
  • Amazon is in talks to offer event ticketing in the U.S. according to Reuters
  • With the popularity of Amazon’s Alexa and the democratisation of technology, AI continues to dominate the present and future, here are some handy tips

If anything catches your eye, please share using #OMDFWD


24/7 Search: My key takeouts from IAB Search 2017

Search is currently going through a renaissance which has implications for agencies and brands. I went to IAB’s Search 2017: 24/7 Search conference last month to find out more about the latest thinking from a range of key industry players.

We began with Sam Fenton-Elstone, Chief Digital Media Officer at VCCP Media saying, “it’s a nice sunny day and we are inside a windowless room talking about Search.” The auditorium, situated in the middle of the building, had numerous TV screens on the walls and the ceiling was cloaked in strip lighting. I almost got the feeling that Batman might soon be returning to his lair after a night fighting crime.

Sam argued that Search is no longer a channel: it is an intrinsic human behaviour. He explained that Search is prolific and, as visualised in a Wheel of Search, some brands even become access points themselves – think ASOS, Skyscanner and Argos.

Clearly this dispels the notion that Google dominates Search. Search marketers all know the figures: Google has almost 95% of the search engine market share, depending on which source, but it does not own Search completely as people now search for information through various ways such as apps, social media and video content.

Conversely, Harry Davies, Marketing Leader at Google UK, not surprisingly stated that everything starts with Search. He began by saying more people now access the internet more often with 87% of them turning to Search in their first moment of need.

Key reasons people use Search

One of his main points, which was also reiterated several times throughout the day, was that the attention span of consumers has got shorter. Indeed, at least two presentations featured goldfish to drive home this point. Whilst 18% of people expect a website to load instantly, Google recommended that the top limit should be around 2 seconds. Most retail sites have an average 3.8 seconds wait time, so there is room for improvement.

After lunch we returned to the Batcave. For the afternoon session, Aaron McGrath, Sales Director at Bing Ads, covered the main ways that Search will evolve. Through predictive search, textless and screenless search, image searching, and face recognition, Search will become more personalised, immersive, situationally relevant and interactive.

When Microsoft HoloLens browsing is brought to physical reality consumers will potentially see how products, like furniture, can fit into their home. Moreover, the uptake in voice search will mean that 50% of all Search will come through voice by 2020 (Bing).

The final presentation was delivered by Scott Abbott, Head of Product for Paid Search at iProspect, describing how user behaviour has changed. The increase in searching on mobile and through voice search is clearly changing the way people search. For example, the number of ‘near me’ queries within retail has risen by 200% YoY.

He went on to suggest that as voice search becomes more prevalent it is important to keep in mind that these types of searches are generally more ‘long tail’. Quite a few people say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ to Siri!

Overall the three main themes across the presentations were the importance of speed for a website, adopting a strategy for voice/visual search and understanding how consumer behaviour is changing. Undoubtedly, it is imperative for us to be adaptive since Search is constantly evolving and is likely to look very different in five years time.


OMD @ DMEXCO 2017

dmexco is the global business and innovation platform of the digital economy, enabling visitors to experience disruptive trends and define the business potential of tomorrow. With over 250 hours of conference programme, more than 1,000 exhibitors and 90,000 square meters of exhibition space – Europe’s leading digital trade fair is growing. As the meeting place for makers and shakers, visionaries, marketing and media professionals, tech enthusiasts and creative thinkers, dmexco combines a leading trade fair for digital marketing with an extraordinary conference.

We are extremely excited that OMD, for the fifth year running is returning to Cologne to help guide our clients, partners and friends through the exhibition and offer an unparalleled experience. This year OMD is offering a comprehensive range of guided tours, from mobile and programmatic to data and social, live hacks focusing on data strategy and marketing technology, and bespoke recommendations for talks and panels you should attend to make your time at dmexco as profitable and educational as possible.

Let us guide you

Start your dmexco experience with a guided tour from our team of OMD experts. For German speaking tours please sign up here. For English speaking tours across mobile, programmatic, data and social please contact [email protected] to reserve your space. English tour timings are as follows:

September 13th

  •  The mobile and social tour- 10.00
  • The programmatic and data tour- 12.00
  • The overview tour- 16.00

September 14th

  •  The mobile and social tour- 12.00
  • The programmatic and data tour- 14.00
  • The overview tour- 16.00

Participation in the tours is only possible after registration. As participants are limited per tour, make sure to secure your place today.

Taking to the stage

Let our experts compile the panels and keynotes that you won’t want to miss. With past speakers including Mondelez’ Dana Anderson, Twitter’s Jack Dorsey, Vice’s Shane Smith and Google’s Sridhar Ramaswamy, the 2017 agenda, including our OMD and Omnicom spokespeople, is bound to be exceptional. 

Your home at dmexco 

With a jam-packed programme make sure you visit the OMD stand to re-energize. Join us for refreshments, networking opportunities or a guided tour. For more information about dmexco and how we can make your time in Cologne more valuable, please contact [email protected]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6XnoDuRPbU


My Four Observations from The IAB Europe AdEx Benchmark report

The IAB Europe AdEx Benchmark report is always a great opportunity to halt the permanent hyperloop we all work in and take stock of exactly what our industry has gone through.We can see that growth has stayed at a consistent level of around 12% year-on-year over the past 5 years as online media matures, accounting for €42bn of all media. However, the following are four areas from this year’s report that I feel have driven real change within the market:

  1. Polarisation within Europe: The larger markets have matured as the tech landscape has settled and programmatic is now a cemented part of online activity within the largest markets.  This compares to the emerging markets, who are seeing rapid growth as the tech giants transfer the learnings from the mature markets’ earlier development and infrastructure. This has meant exponential growth for the likes of Romania and Slovenia, as the initial entrants into areas such as programmatic have been received positively, driving further confidence.
  2. The Organisation of Data: The accountability of online media has always been positive, but equally it has led to further complexity in the market.  Not only has measurement begun to see some degree of standardisation, helping brands understand true effectiveness over time, but it has also allowed for more dynamic, real time decisions to become a standard practice. However, this organisation of data has not just allowed for clearer measurement. Publishers and platforms have segmented their audiences with more effect – the understanding of observed behavioural insights, as well as development of robust custom audiences has meant that targeting is paying back a stronger ROI and, as a result, increasing investment.
  3. The Integration of Media and Content:  Building on the last point, and due to the complexity of formats that online media comes with, content is playing a tighter role within all media decisions.  The term “mobile first” is overused in our industry and not because people don’t appreciate the importance that the device plays in people’s lives, but because brands would all too often put their TV ad straight onto a mobile placement.  The insights we are getting from our ability to analyse data more effectively has meant that the content creation and production process is now more dynamic and increasingly relevant to the device, context and environment when served.
  4. The Growth of e-Commerce: The advancements of e-commerce from a platform experience (as well as improvements in distribution) have meant the consumer has more and more confidence in adopting this method of shopping.  This has naturally has led to a rise in more direct performance media such as search. As content experience improves and the fact that the point of desire and traction can now happen in a matter of seconds, more immersive forms of online content has begun to prove direct attribution to sales.

There are still many opportunities across the industry to improve the experience that brands provide within online media, as well as simplifying the technical infrastructure that they operate in.  However, there is a lot to be positive about as we enter the 3rd wave of disruption and the mass adoption of areas such as Artificial Intelligence and the internet of things.


My Four Observations from The IAB Europe AdEx Benchmark report

The IAB Europe AdEx Benchmark report is always a great opportunity to halt the permanent hyperloop we all work in and take stock of exactly what our industry has gone through.We can see that growth has stayed at a consistent level of around 12% year-on-year over the past 5 years as online media matures, accounting for €42bn of all media. However, the following are four areas from this year’s report that I feel have driven real change within the market:

  1. Polarisation within Europe: The larger markets have matured as the tech landscape has settled and programmatic is now a cemented part of online activity within the largest markets.  This compares to the emerging markets, who are seeing rapid growth as the tech giants transfer the learnings from the mature markets’ earlier development and infrastructure. This has meant exponential growth for the likes of Romania and Slovenia, as the initial entrants into areas such as programmatic have been received positively, driving further confidence.
  2. The Organisation of Data: The accountability of online media has always been positive, but equally it has led to further complexity in the market.  Not only has measurement begun to see some degree of standardisation, helping brands understand true effectiveness over time, but it has also allowed for more dynamic, real time decisions to become a standard practice. However, this organisation of data has not just allowed for clearer measurement. Publishers and platforms have segmented their audiences with more effect – the understanding of observed behavioural insights, as well as development of robust custom audiences has meant that targeting is paying back a stronger ROI and, as a result, increasing investment.
  3. The Integration of Media and Content:  Building on the last point, and due to the complexity of formats that online media comes with, content is playing a tighter role within all media decisions.  The term “mobile first” is overused in our industry and not because people don’t appreciate the importance that the device plays in people’s lives, but because brands would all too often put their TV ad straight onto a mobile placement.  The insights we are getting from our ability to analyse data more effectively has meant that the content creation and production process is now more dynamic and increasingly relevant to the device, context and environment when served.
  4. The Growth of e-Commerce: The advancements of e-commerce from a platform experience (as well as improvements in distribution) have meant the consumer has more and more confidence in adopting this method of shopping.  This has naturally has led to a rise in more direct performance media such as search. As content experience improves and the fact that the point of desire and traction can now happen in a matter of seconds, more immersive forms of online content has begun to prove direct attribution to sales.

There are still many opportunities across the industry to improve the experience that brands provide within online media, as well as simplifying the technical infrastructure that they operate in.  However, there is a lot to be positive about as we enter the 3rd wave of disruption and the mass adoption of areas such as Artificial Intelligence and the internet of things.


OMD FWD w/c Jan 30th

Hello and welcome to another weekly dose of FWD where recent studies have proven ‘Generation X’ are more addicted to Social Media than ‘Millennials’. This might come as a surprise to some of you, however, this demonstrates how the younger generation is moving away from traditional social platforms.

That said, Facebook is still the most popular network on our smartphones, followed by Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest according to Nielsen’s latest report. This, in turn, explains how Facebook had more conversations via mobile than desktop for the first time, particularly around Black Friday, with transactions growing by 55% year on year. This is a 10% increase on the same time in 2015.

In further developments, Facebook is now testing ads within their mobile messaging interface, which could be the start of something big if successful in both Australia and Thailand, watch this space!

 HEADLINES

INSIGHTS

COOL

DEEP READS

As ever, share anything interesting you spot with #OMDFWD


OMD FWD w/c Dec 19th

In October, Twitter announced it was shutting down Vine, its app that lets users create and share 6-second looping videos. However, the company has now announced it won’t actually pull the Vine app from the app store but instead transition it to a new, low maintenance app called Vine Camera. The videos recorded using the new app can be saved to your camera roll or posted directly to Twitter, following a similar strategy to Facebook-owned Instagram. Whilst it is fairly common for under-performing products to simply get closed down entirely Twitter have kept Vine partially online. It will be interesting to see if Vine Camera takes off in the New Year. But before we say goodbye to 2016, Google take us through a trends overview for 2016, from Pokémon to Donald Trump, and TrendWatching tell us what trends to look out for in 2017.

HEADLINES

INSIGHTS

COOL

DEEP READS

… AND THE OMD FWD TOP 3 FOR 2016

See you in 2017! Please share anything you spot interesting over the seasonal period with #OMDFWD


OMD FWD w/c December 12th

Amazon Go is a bricks-and-mortar grocery shop due to open to the public in 2017. The Seattle-based store will enable people with an Amazon Go app ‘just to walk’ out of the store without the need to wait in line to pay or check out. Amazon said that it started working on the concept four years ago by bringing together technologies found in self-driving cars (such as computer vision, sensor fusion and deep learning) to create a store. The technology used in-store is able to detect when products are taken or returned to the shelves, keeping a track of them in your virtual cart. After picking up what you want in the store, your Amazon account will automatically be charged and receive a receipt. Powered by artificial intelligence this is a huge development for the future of retail and in-store experiences, which have been struggling to compete with e-commerce. It will be interesting to see how other high street brands react to this development in 2017.

HEADLINES

INSIGHTS

 COOL

 DEEP READS

And finally, if you’re feeling ambitious but stuck for inspiration for Christmas

As ever, please tag and share anything you spot with #OMDFWD.


The Future of TV: How Changes to the Way We Watch Television Are Keeping Brands on Their Toes

Long gone are the days when the whole family would crowd around a single television, completely focused on the screen for the entire duration of the programme. Today, family members consume different content in different rooms on different devices. All of this means that the traditional advert break is becoming less and less relevant – so just what does this mean for brands?

 AD BLOCKING

adblocker_lcon

Ad blocking is already gaining ground, with more and more consumers eliminating ads they consider intrusive. According to PageFair, at least 419 million people are now blocking ads, a 90% increase in 12 months. This figure does not include content-blocking apps, in-app ad blockers, and opt-in browser ad blockers. PageFair forecasts the global cost of ad blocking to reach $41.4 billion in 2016. The best response to ad blocking is to make each advert as relevant to the viewer as possible so that it is a welcomed interruption rather than an annoyance. All messages will have the potential to become context-aware when TVs connect with other objects in the home and wearable devices.

MULTIPLE DEVICES

multiscreening

Despite the general move away from real-time programming, certain big TV events will remain compelling enough for audiences to watch live, particularly global sporting events. But, there will be increased expectations for augmented viewer experiences through immersive content and second-screen interactivity. Netflix earlier this year announced a new second screening feature providing viewers with supplemental content which can be accessed through their mobile devices. Further brand integration with entertainment content will be key going forward, from product placement (making a brand visible in a scene) to product immersion (making a brand an integral part of the storyline). Brands should also take advantage of device fluidity – connecting TVs with other screens and platforms allowing owned content to flow from screen to screen – to provide a connected and holistic viewing experience.

ADDRESSABILITY

addressability

Success today lies not in targeting more people, but in how brands reach consumers with personalised content based on their environment or needs. Addressability allows brands to show different ads to different viewers while they are looking at the same content, such as Destination Canada’s ‘Explore Canada’ campaign. The more a brand knows about its target audience, the more it can refine its message and deliver maximum impact. Personalisation is currently broadly limited to viewers being able to choose which device they want to watch media content on, and getting suggestions for future content based on their viewing history. We are also seeing trends in the personalisation of viewing content, such as NFL NOW, a video network which allows sports fans to build their own channel of content by selecting their favourite teams or players. In the future, personalisation might start to influence storylines based on viewers’ preferences, or perhaps even by syncing with the viewer’s emotional, physical and haptic biometric data.

DRASTICALLY CHANGING VIEWING HABITS IS ALREADY PROVING HUGELY CHALLENGING FOR BRANDS.

As Nikki Mendonça, OMD EMEA President, explained at the Future TV Advertising Forum, it is the role of media agencies to cross-pollinate (like bees) between the emergent walled gardens to create powerful custom audiences, which will become the marketing currency of the future.

nikki

However, she warned that “there is a lot of value in the so-called wastage.” We need the reach of TV, even if targeting is very valuable: P&G scaling back targeted Facebook Ads is an interesting example.

Ultimately, we need to follow the same marketing principles as we always have. We still need a powerful story that reaches the right people at the right time and in the right place. The brands that are leading the charge in giving individual viewers what they really want will reap the rewards going forward.

Want to know more about the Future of TV? Email us at [email protected]


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